Michelle D’Couto, Product Manager for Serials Solutions

Meet Michelle D’Couto, Product Manager for Serials Solutions. Michelle is helping to lead the plan and to define the vision and product requirements for Serials Solutions Intota™.

What is your professional background? Originally, I am from Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan with a BSE degree in Chemical Engineering. I spent 15+ years in Silicon Valley, first on the client side providing support to US and International customers and then on the development side with enterprise systems for a production environment. I am approaching my one year anniversary at Serials Solutions!

What do you like most about working for Serials Solutions? There’s a couple. Every client I have interviewed has shared positive feedback about Serials Solutions’ customer support. So, it’s exciting to work for a company that is highly regarded—especially by its own customer base.

Of course, I will also say being a part of Intota™ that it’s rare to be a part of building something from the ground up.

What do you find most exciting about the future of the library? The “library” is undergoing a paradigm shift. It is now more than a home for books – it is a place to meet and study, it can house a recording studio and a 3D lab, it can circulate items that the patron needs – it can have a virtual presence and be accessed from a remote computer.

Who is your favorite author? When it’s raining here and I need to curl up with a great classic, it is Edith Wharton. When I feel like cooking, it might be Julia Child. Dr. Seuss is also always a wonderful voice.

Do you have a favorite library? If so, which one? This one’s easy! The downtown Everett Public Library, here, in Washington state. When I’m there, I can smell the stacks and look around and see the expansive young adult and children’s section that is still staffed by a librarian! She is always available and genuinely treats each person, including the children, like they are true patrons. It’s this experience that matters most to me—more so than aesthetics.

What can you tell us about yourself that we might never guess? People might be surprised to know that when I was in the Bay Area, I was a slam poet. Slam poetry is a form of spoken word poetry that is performed within a competitive poetry event, called a "slam,” at which poets perform their own original works that are "judged" on a numeric scale by randomly selected members of the audience.

With a wide range of content available, the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras (UPRRP) was in search of an easy to use solution that would improve access and discovery of their library collections. After evaluating discovery tools for…